When Valerie Brinkley sold her motorcycle over the Internet, it was in hopes of cobbling enough money together for a down payment on a house. Three months later, she instead owes her bank more than $4,300 and has been told that if she doesn't pay, she may never be able to open another account anywhere.

Bank officials say the cashier's check Brinkley deposited was counterfeit. Unfortunately, they didn't find that out until Brinkley had withdrawn money on the check to send to the man who "overpaid" for her motorcycle.

Officials say it's an all-too-common scam - one that Brinkley, a single mother from Manchester, will pay for nevertheless.

In January, Brinkley sold her motorcycle via Trader4Less.com for $10,000 to a man who purportedly was from Texas. The man, who used the name Robert Cano and a Yahoo e-mail address, sent her a $17,000 check, saying he bought the bike for a customer overseas and the extra cash was his for his "finder's fee" and the shipping costs. He told her to mail him the $7,000 and said he would call later with the shipping instructions.

After the check was deposited in a Concord branch of the Laconia Savings Bank, Brinkley waited three or four days, withdrew the money and wired it to Texas. "The bank released it. Apparently, the check cleared," she said yesterday. "They gave me $7,000 in cash. I assumed they had verified the funds in the bank."

Not so.

Bank officials say federal law requires that cashier's checks be paid on the next business day, regardless of whether they have been cleared by the lending bank. So, a few days after Brinkley withdrew $7,000 from an account that only had $2,300 in it, the vice president of the bank called.

"She said the check was counterfeit and that all of my accounts would be seized, and I'm liable for the remainder of the money,"Brinkley said. "I just can't believe that a bank would not verify a $17,000 check. It seems to me that someone dropped the ball for them to give me that money without checking first. I've had banks call on a $200 check."

Brinkley said she immediately called Western Union to cancel the $7,000 she wired to Texas. But she was told someone already picked it up in Canada.

"If you wire money, it can be picked up at any Western Union, I found out after. I found out a lot after," Brinkley said. "People assume banks check those things. I have excellent credit."

Of the $17,000, the bank had put $10,000 in Brinkley's savings account, she said. Officials removed that from her account and seized the $2,300 she had in her savings account. Now, the bank wants the balance of more than $4,300.

In a letter to Brinkley on March 24, Shaun Sanborn, vice president of Laconia Savings Bank's security and safety, said the bank closed her account and reported the loss to the National Check Protection System. "This action may prevent you from opening an account at another financial institution and result in the matter being referred to law enforcement for prosecution," Sanborn wrote.

Brinkley said she had already reported the scam to the Concord police, the U.S. Marshals Service and the U.S. Postal Inspector. "There's no avenue of recourse for me," she said. "They're not trying to investigate because it happens so much." She said Trader4Less also has a division to investigate fraud, although she has not contacted the company.

Phony cashier's checks are considered a form of identity theft, incidents of which have doubled since last year - to one in eight people, officials said. People should use caution with Internet purchases, particularly if someone sends more money than was requested and asks for a refund, they said.

Yesterday, Concord Police Lt. Bill Carroll said the department has dealt with several eBay scams, but he added that Brinkley's was the only one he knew of that involved a check. "Usually, we deal with a person who pays for a product and doesn't get it," he said. (next page »)